1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to devices and methods used to designate or label selected portions of text documents and preferably to documents for use with an electronic display device.
2. Description of the Related Art
The ability to read is a necessity in modern society, and doing so efficiently is critically important to students, professionals, and even recreational readers. As a result, many tools have proliferated to achieve that goal such as condensed books, educational outlines and Cliffs Notes™, to name but a few. While these approaches reduce the amount that one has to read to a minimum, they do so by excising much of the original documents. For example, condensing a novel such as “Lord of the Rings” can result in a summary that contains the main elements of the plot and is easy to read, but the subplots and nuances of the work will be unavailable to the reader.
In addition, it has long been known that readers can highlight text. For example, readers put yellow hi-liter over selected words, phrases or other portions of the text. Readers may also underline and/or circle text of interest. However, this is on an individual basis. Moreover, it is not systemized. Further it can detract from reading other portions of the text or reading the highlighted portions themselves. It is also difficult to provide two or more types of highlighted or emphasis on the same text because highlighting is provided on the text.
What is needed is a way to systematically “highlight” or otherwise emphasize or outline the elements of a story, desired portions of a treatise such as legal, medical or scientific journals, or virtually any text.